HENRY FORD
Fifty-two years ago[1] a few farmers’ familiesnear Greenfield, Michigan, heard that there wasanother baby at the Fords’—a boy. Mother andson were doing well. They were going to namethe boy Henry.
Twenty-six years later a little neighborhoodon the edge of Detroit was amused to hear thatthe man Ford who had just built the little whitehouse on the corner had a notion that he couldinvent something. He was always putteringaway in the old shed back of the house. Sometimeshe worked all night there. The neighborssaw the light burning through the cracks.
Twelve years ago half a dozen men in Detroitwere actually driving the Ford automobile aboutthe streets. Ford had started a small factory,with a dozen mechanics, and was buying material.It was freely predicted that the venturewould never come to much.
Last year—January, 1914—America wasstartled by an announcement from the Ford factorythat ten million dollars would be dividedamong the eighteen thousand employees as theirshare of the company’s profits. Henry Ford wasa multimillionaire, and America regarded himwith awe.
Mankind must have its hero. The demand forhim is more insistent than hunger, more inexorablethan cold or fear. Before a race buildshouses or prepares food with its hands, it createsin its mind that demigod, that superman, standingon a higher plane than the rest of humanity,more admirable, more powerful than the others.We must have him as a symbol of somethinggreater than ourselves, to keep alive in us thatfaith in life which is threatened by our own experienceof living.
He is at once our greatest solace and our worstenemy. We cling to him as a child clings to aguiding hand, unable to walk without it, and neverable to walk alone until it is let go. Every advanceof democracy destroys our old hero, andhastily we build up another. When science hasexorcised Jove, and real estate promoters havesubdivided the Olympian heights, we desert theold altars to kneel before thrones. When ourkings have been cast down from their high placesby our inconsistent struggles for liberty, we cannotleave those high places empty.